Spotify users fuming over subscriptions price hikes

By Steigrad

Spotify users are fuming over the music streamer’s recent price hikes, calling the company “greedy” and threatening to cancel their subscriptions.

“I’m going back to Apple Music,” one angry user tweeted Tuesday.

“Goodbye @spotify It’s back to pirating music for me, you greedy bastards,” wrote another customer.

The Swedish company helmed by CEO and founder Daniel Ek said Monday that it was raising its monthly prices by as much as $2 for its advertising-free premium plan.

Spotify justified its price increased in a Monday blog post, which read: “The market landscape has continued to evolve since we launched. So that we can keep innovating, we are changing our Premium prices across a number of markets around the world. These updates will help us continue to deliver value to fans and artists on our platform.”

As a result, customers in the US saw their individual premium plans jump from $10.99 from $9.99. The Duo plan for two accounts rose $2 to $14.99, while the Family plan and the Student plan got a $1 increase to $16.99 and $5.99, respectively.

Spotify has come under fire for not paying artists royalties per streamed song.

Instead, it uses a system in which it pays musicians on a “streamshare” basis.

That translates to payments that vary depending on how music is streamed or its agreements with licensors, the company said.

Customers brought up that compensation model to call out the streaming giant.

“Will be cancelling my Premium sub, @Spotify, @SpotifyUSA. It’s only $1 but it’s unjustified and greedy, esp. since no new features are being added AND you still don’t pay artists what they deserve. It was fun while it lasted!,” wrote one customer.

“When are we going to go on strike for music streaming services until bands and artists are properly compensated for their music??,” tweeted a user. “Especially after Spotify upped their premium prices while staying consistent in stream revenue for musicians?”

Spotify’s decision came ahead of its lackluster second-quarter financial results Tuesday that missed analysts’ expectations, sending shares down nearly 15% in midday trading to about $140.03 a share.

Spotify posted a larger-than-expected net loss of $333.4 million or $1.71 a share compared with a year-ago loss of $138 million or 94 cents a share.

Analysts expected a loss of 73 cents a share.

Revenue totaled $3.18 billion, better than the $3.54 billion expected by Wall Street.